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Motorola tries to restrain Nokia's head of CDMA

Jan 20, 2010 8:06pm

Motorola has placed a temporary restraining order on a former executive who left the vendor to join Nokia as the head of its global CDMA business.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Motorola filed an emergency motion on January 14 in the US’s Cook County Circuit Court, asking for a restraining order against Motorola’s former VP in the mobile devices business, David Hartsfield. The case was moved to U.S. District Court.

The filing claims that as a VP Hartsfield had "access to Motorola's most competitively sensitive information" particularly in the CDMA area.

The executive resigned from Motorola in early December, to take the role of vice president of Nokia's global CDMA business.

In a statement, Motorola said that it is suing Hartsfield for breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets and that it is "also seeking expedited discovery and a preliminary injunction for further restrictions and damages."

Hartsfield's attorney filed a response claiming that Motorola's request was "grossly inadequate," as CDMA technology is an industry standard not "secret proprietary information." The response also said the alleged non-compete clauses referenced by the company were buried in documentation about Hartsfield's stock options.

"We are confident we will show the court that Mr. Hartsfield has not disclosed any confidential information to his new employer," said Hartsfield’s legal representative.

This is not the first time Motorola has gone after an ex-employee in 2008, the vendor filed a similar suit against Michael Fenger, a mobile devices executive who left for a position at Apple. The case was dismissed last year.